Formidable Liquorice - Monkeyboy
Artist: Formidable Liquorice
Album: Monkeyboy
http://formidableliquorice.fuccboi.me/#releases
The first track comes out blaring with a haunted, muffled swirling sound of something tore from the hazy nostalgic memory of a child's discovery of music. The same idea is warped and molded into a darker, honestly insane drone in the following track and leaves the impression that you're listening to something made by someone who has completely lost their mind. This is Formidable Liquorice. A lo-fi experimental punk rock band whose first album, Monkeyboy is one full of indescribable twists and turns. This album thoroughly smashes expectations from song to song, but as a whole remains thematically stale.
Throughout the album certain motifs of lo-fi production rear their only too obvious head. Each track sounds like it was recorded either on a webcam mic, or they used the noise reduction filter in audacity on the final mix down. The result is that it sounds like you’re listening to it from the other end of a bad Skype call. Overall the album feels painfully derivative of Daniel Johnston’s High, How Are You, complete with childish black white hand drawn album art and a sense of uncertainty.
~EH